This month the Society for the History of Psychology (Division 26 of the American Psychological Association) offers a special virtual issue of the journal History of Psychology. Entitled “Teaching Diversity: What can History Offer?” this free volume includes three pieces selected and introduced by Division President Alexandra Rutherford which “address gender, race/ethnicity, and the intersection of sexuality and disability in historical perspective” in order to highlight “that historical scholarship offers a rich and often untapped resource for instructors who wish to engage students in critical conversations about diversity issues across the psychology curriculum.” Rutherford’s introduction “outline[s] how these articles can be incorporated into courses across the curriculum to deepen students’ understanding of how psychology and psychologists have grappled with these issues and how historical analyses can inform contemporary topics and debates.”

The conclusion to Rutherford’s introductory article provides a concise synopsis of how this special issue can be a resource for the promotion of socially responsible pedagogical values in psychology, and their application in the classroom:

“The articles featured here to encourage the use of historical scholarship across the psychology curriculum demonstrate how history can facilitate forms of critical thinking that have the potential to make students better scholars and better psychologists. By encountering historical analyses that provoke critical questions about the relationship between science and culture, science and politics, and science and society, students develop the capacity to examine the preexisting assumptions that may creep uncritically into contemporary research. They develop the capacity to examine the role that psychology, as a powerful scientific and social institution, plays in our everyday lives. There is no reason that the development of these skills should be undertaken only in the history of psychology course. I hope this introduction has provided some ideas about how to use history to achieve critical learning objectives across the curriculum.”

The May 2011 Time Capsule section of the APA Monitor on Psychology features a piece by Ann Johnson on the development of the Minnesota Institute of Child Welfare, now the Institute of Child Development. Johnson’s focus is on the Institute’s aborted plan to open an infant laboratory where babies would live and be studied around the clock. The article recounts that,

In late 1925, Minnesota psychologist Florence Goodenough, PhD, wrote excitedly to her mentor at Stanford University, Lewis Terman, PhD, about plans to open the new Minnesota Institute of Child Welfare. As the institute’s chief research scientist, Goodenough would oversee several research projects on children and supervise graduate students. She was particularly enthusiastic about the institute’s plan for securing some very young research participants: “There will be organized an infants’ home where from six to 10 infants will be kept from birth up to the age of two or three years for observation and study. Plans for this are under way, but as yet we have no babies.”

Although plans for a Minnesota Institute of Child Welfare infant laboratory were never realized, placing babies in university-based laboratory settings was not as outlandish an idea as it might seem. At the time that plans were underway to establish a psychological infant laboratory “laboratory babies” were already in place elsewhere on the campus:

In 1914, the Minnesota Home Economics Department opened the first of two “home management houses,” sometimes called home laboratories. These were model homes in which junior- and senior-level home economics majors lived and gained hands-on practice — as well as course credit — for managing domestic tasks. In 1919, a new feature was added: a baby for each house. Working with local child welfare agencies, the home economics administrators arranged for these model homes to qualify as foster-type homes for local orphan babies or other infants separated from their families. These “laboratory babies” became the subject of a 1920 article in Ladies Home Journal titled “The Baby with Forty Mothers.” The subtitle: “A University Course in Home Making with Real, Live Infants for Textbooks.”

These “laboratory babies” or “practice babies” were not unique to the University of Minnesota. From the 1910s through to the 1960s practice babies were used in “practice apartments,” meant to train women in the practices of scientific mothering, in home economics programs across the United States. Details of the use of practice babies in the Cornell University program (left) have been recently fictionalized in the book The Irresistible Henry House by Lisa Grunwald. The book draws on material available in an online exhibit of the history of the Cornell home economics program. Further details on practice babies can be found in the New York Timesreview of Grunwald’s book, as well as in this blog post and in this NPR piece (audio available online).

Advances in the History of Psychology has taken the leap into social media and joined both Facebook and Twitter. You can now follow us via our Facebook page and our Twitter feed for even more on the latest developments in the history of psychology.

Those interested in even more history of psychology via social media may also want to check out the Facebook pages of the Society for the History of Psychology, Division 26 of the American Psychological Association, and the Center for the History of Psychology. Both post regularly and are great sources for unique finds in the history of psychology. The Center for the History of Psychology’s Facebook page is particularly interesting for its regular posts of archival material from its Archives of the History of American Psychology. For instance, today’s Archival Gem o’ the Day, as posted on their facebook page, is a psychoanalysis comic from 1955 (right). According to their post,

The inside cover reads: “Through the medium of comic format, we will attempt to portray, graphically and dramatically, the manner in which people find peace of mind through the science of psychoanalysis.” (Published by “Entertaining Comics.” Provenance unknown.)

Check in with their Facebook page regularly for even more archival gems. And, of course, don’t forget to follow AHP on Facebook and Twitter!

The February 2010 issue of the APA’s Monitor on Psychology contains an article on the teaching of the history of psychology. The article explores the status of history of psychology in North American psychology programs, noting that,

many educators believe the history of psychology should be required as part of every student’s training at the graduate and undergraduate levels. Studying the field’s successes and mistakes, alongside today’s emerging findings, teaches students how to think critically about psychology…

Despite this, some institutions, including Columbia University, Stanford University and Claremont McKenna College, have stopped offering a course on the history of psychology. While noting this trend in the training of psychologists, the article goes on to discuss efforts to grow the field, including the Society for the History of Psychology’s organization of a full track of history of psychology programming at the Eastern Psychological Association’s annual conference, to be held next month in New York. The full article on the teaching of the history of psychology can be found here.

The Society for the History of Psychology (SHP), Division 26 of the American Psychological Association, has launched a new website. The site includes a blogfeed on the homepage, an events section, as well as a teaching section. A dedicated student area is also under development. The SHP is also selling Society for the History of Psychology merchandise on the site through CafePress. Among the items available for purchase are t-shirts, teddybears, and magnets, as well as dog bowls emblazoned with ‘Pavlov’.

The new SHP website is part of the division’s effort stimulate membership involvement, an effort that has also led to the creation of an SHP facebook page. According to the site,

The new SHP webpage offers a central source for popular history and psychology-related blogs such as the Advances in the History of Psychology, British Psychological Society, Mindhacks, and many more. We have built a great resource but we will need your help to make it even better. Continue reading New SHP Website Launched!→

Previously on AHP: during the American Psychological Association’s (APA) annual convention, held earlier this month in Toronto, the APA Council approved a drastic cut in funding to Archives of the History of American Psychology (AHAP). AHP’s previous coverage of APA’s funding cuts to AHAP, and the fall out thereof, can be found here and here.

Now, Christopher Green, President of the Society for the History of Psychology, Division 26 of the APA, has voiced his opinion on the recent decision to cut funding to AHAP. Green, in a recent letter to APA President James Bray, voiced his disappointment at APA’s decision with respect to AHAP. Both Green’s letter to Bray and Bray’s response follow.

In his letter to President Bray, Green wrote:

I am compelled to register my extreme disappointment with the shabby treatment that the APA has accorded the Archives for the History of American Psychology (AHAP) at the University of Akron. Although the APA’s normal annual contribution to AHAP had already been approved by APA Council earlier in the year, an unelected APA administrator took it upon himself to unilaterally cut the contribution in half, exposing this important research institution — an affiliate of the Smithsonian — to serious operational difficulties in the middle of the year with no advance warning. Continue reading SHP Pres’s letter; APA Pres. Bray’s Response→

Breaking news:Ludy Benjamin Jr. has resigned from the American Psychological Association.

In addition to his well-known and long-standing scholarly involvement in the Society for the History of Psychology, for which he was recognized as a Fellow in 1981, he has also shaped the last quarter-century of several APA divisions: Teaching (Division 2), for which he was recognized as a Fellow in 1982; General Psychology (Div. 1) and Psychology of Women (Div. 35) in 1990; and Experimental Psychology (Div. 3) in 1997.

I began thinking about resigning when APA Council began passing resolutions on the involvement of psychologists in torture and interrogations that were opposite to positions taken by other national associations in health care and public welfare. But I stayed in because of the AHAP funding issues. As I indicated in my resignation letter to James Bray, I was not resigning because APA cut funds to the Archives. But I was resigning because the process was, in my opinion, one of subterfuge from the initiation of the cuts in Central Office through what I perceived as the rigged debate on the floor of Council in Toronto.

He will also return his Presidential Citation, awarded for his many contributions to the Association.

I have been a student affiliate member since my senior year in college and a member since 1971. I have been to every APA convention since 1974. In the nearly 40 years of my membership I have held many offices in APA on boards and committees and APA Council, as well as spending two years in APA Central Office as Director of the Office of Educational Affairs. APA has given me much and I have worked hard for the Association in return.

Yet, even as he resigns from the APA, he won’t be leaving History.

Resigning was not an easy decision for me. It is something that until recently I never imagined that I would do. APA has meant much to me and it pains me to leave the Association in this way. However, I feel that my own values do not mesh well with those of the Association’s leadership. I will continue to support the Society for the History of Psychology and maintain my membership there.

To join the Society for the History of Psychology, without first joining the American Psychological Association, find information here. For information about how to support the Archives of the History of American Psychology (both financially and in terms of donating historical materials), look here.

Division 26 of the American Psychological Association, better known as the Society for the History of Psychology (SHP), has just unveiled its new Facebook page. The page is an initiative of the SHP’s new Technology Committee, whose members include: Wade Pickren, division President-Elect and Editor of History of Psychology; Ingrid Farreras, the division’s Electronics Editor; Kelli Vaughn-Blount, New, Notes & Sources Editor; and James Capshew, former editor of History of Psychology.

The Facebook page features notices of upcoming history of psychology events, such as the division’s own meeting at the APA conference being held in Toronto this August. Also, featured are notices of other history of psychology related events and conferences taking place both within and outside of North America. Fans of the group are free share news with other members by posting on the group’s wall.

A unique addition to the page are the posts by Kate Harper, a doctoral student in the History and Theory of Psychology program at York University, who has been recruited as the forum’s roving reporter. Continue reading SHP Facebook page→

Previously on AHP: Wade Pickren was confirmed as the new editor of History of Psychology, the official journal of the Society for the History of Psychology (division 26 of the American Psychological Association).

Just prior to making this announcement, I asked him to share his thoughts with AHP. The result, below, is a behind-the-scenes look at the future of History of Psychology. He writes:

I am very honored to have been chosen to be only the third editor of History of Psychology. The legacy of Michael Sokal and Jim Capshew is large and I have big shoes to fill. I look forward to the challenge of building on what they have constructed.

I think about psychology in very broad terms in both the little p and big P senses, to use Graham Richards’ distinction. I will encourage scholarship that is just as broad for publication in the journal.

I hope to make the journal even more inclusive in terms of topics covered and to expand even further the range of authors whose sound scholarship should be published in the journal. I hope we can add international perspectives so that we can share in the exciting developments occurring in our field in many countries around the world. Doing so will help us realize the importance of cultural context in both science and practice. It may well be that our best and most direct way to understand the complexities of our globalizing world is to take a historical perspective. I would want our journal, History of Psychology, to be at the forefront of providing that perspective. Continue reading Pickren’s vision for History of Psychology→